All Posts by Jerry Hildenbrand

We heard it was going to happen, and today the Galaxy Nexus has appeared with a price and an "add to cart" button again in Google Play, but things are still a bit off. Prior to the sales ban, we were able to click and get almost instant gratification knowing the phone was shipping out immediately, but now we're seeing a two to three week delay. We're not sure if this is a way to get time to make...

The long-awaited Google Nexus 7 tablet is upon us, and for many it is all we ever dreamed of. But not everything is perfect.
Since you're reading this, chances are you're an Android fan. That means you're as excited as we are about the new Nexus 7 tablet, and what Google can bring to the table with a tablet where it alone controls both the hardware and the software. It's good to be excited...

Oh Verizon, why must you constantly mess with perfection? Hackers with early access to the Verizon Galaxy S III have discovered that the phone has a protected bootloader -- meaning no easy hacking or flashing unsigned images. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the Galaxy S III phones, or previous phones in the Galaxy series, or any other Samsung-built Android phone known to mankind.
Not...

Capturing the screen is a great way to save something for posterity and show it off to your friends.
You just got your brand new Samsung Galaxy S3 and you want to capture some of the cool stuff you can do with a screen shot, but it doesn’t work the same way as other Android phones, does it?
If you came to the Galaxy S3 from a prior Android phone, you are most likely familiar with the “Android...

That was quick! Security researchers at Microsoft and Sophos say they may have spoke a bit too soon about Android phones hosting a BotNet and spamming through Yahoo mail servers. Terry Zink, one of the discovers of the issue, said the following on his MSDN security blog:
Yes, it’s entirely possible that bot on a compromised PC connected to Yahoo Mail, inserted the the message-ID thus...

It's been a while since we saw an Android security scare, but the word "BotNet" attached to this one makes up for it. It appears that users in Chile, Indonesia, Lebanon, Oman, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela have compromised Android phones are have been sending out Viagra spam through Yahoo mail servers.
Microsoft security researcher Terry Zink discovered...

Samsung's request for a stay in the potential Galaxy Nexus sales ban was denied this evening by U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh. As everyone knows, Judge Koh decided last Friday that she feels Apple would win at least some of its case against Samsung for patent infringement, and suffer damages substantial enough to warrant a ban on the sale of the Android flagship phone. Google says it has...

Madfinger Games has brought their latest highly anticipated FPS to Google Play, and Dead Trigger is now available for just $0.99. The same folks who brought us Samurai II:Vengance and Shadowgun now deliver a fast-paced FPS that's chock full of zombies and blood. It's an alternate reality apocalyptic style game placed in today's times with today's modern weapons, and your job is to survive....

Verizon has officially announced release details for the Galaxy S III, and we'll be seeing the device on Big Red on July 10. Pricing is $199.99 for the 16GB version, and $249.99 for the 32GB model. For your money, you're getting the same great internals (dual-core S4 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 4.8-inch Super AMOLED) on Verizon's nationwide LTE network.
At this point there's not much else to say about the...

Hooray! It looks like Google, Samsung, and Sprint were able to iron out the difficulties in redistributing the closed source radio code for the Nexus S 4G and it's now officially a part of the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) again! Says Jean-Baptiste Queru, Technical Lead, Android Open Source Project --
We've been able to resolve the issues around Nexus S 4G, and we can now properly...

Google has released the latest platform version numbers tonight, and things are as expected -- still slowly trending up. Before we go any further, we have to note that Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) is not on any retail devices yet and is not included in these numbers. Having said that, it's nice to see ICS finally hit double digits on its slow race to adoption. Every version lower than 4.0 saw losses...

Hacking your Galaxy Nexus is cool - but even cooler is being able to fix it and get back to stock
With all the Jelly Bean ROMs floating around out there, more than a few of us have put our Galaxy Nexus devices so far off the official path that we need breadcrumbs to find our way back. Custom firmware is half the fun of owning one of Google's wide-open phones, and we encourage everyone to learn...

As soon as the schedule for Google I/O 2012's developer sessions was announced, I knew the Security and Privacy in Android Apps session was going to be a must-attend session. The Internet and its FUD machine gives Android security a lot of bad press, and while some of it is warranted, some of it is just sensationalism. Android is a big name and big names in big headlines sell papers.
I'm so...

You might have heard that we just got back from Google I/O (it was sort of a big deal for Android fans). We're tired, we're cranky, and we're sitting with our sore feet propped up just waiting for next year so we can do it all over again. It's work, but it's the best part of the best job a nerd could ever want. You also probably heard about the "big news" from Google I/O, namely Nexus tablets...

If you're in the market for a new Android phone, Best Buy will be putting the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX on sale for two-days (June 29 and 30) at just $180 with a new agreement. While other phones have come along that may have better specs or fancy new features, the RAZR MAXX has that 3300 mAh battery to keep running long after all other LTE phones have bit the dust. It's an impressive beast, and...

The above was pulled from the documentation for Android long past, but truer words were never spoken. Notifications can make or break a platform, and Google came up with a winning plan in their notification shade. After a few hours with Jelly Bean, I'm here to tell you things just got better. A lot better.
Notifications in Android 4.1 are now dynamic, feature more information displayed in a...

You might have heard that Google tossed out the next version of Android yesterday, and Jelly Bean is now official. We're pouring through things to find what's new, what's good, and what's not. One thing we stumbled across got our attention, as it's an app permission and security related. We've said before that external storage on a mobile device, by it's very nature, is insecure. If you format...

Google has made it clear at Google I/O -- they love Google+ and are going full steam ahead with the social platform. We don't blame them, as we think with the right nurturing it can stand out among the rest. What's been sorely missing is options for third party applications to integrate with G+ as the do with Facebook and Twitter. Google has made that one step closer to reality today with the...

A few weeks back we told you that the Galaxy S III would not be able to use the last-generation MHL to HDMI adapter cables because of hardware changes. Samsung has come forward with a much better solution than just telling you to buy a new cable, as they have built a 5-pin to 11-pin adapter that allows the old cable to work with the new phone. They also gave us a reason as to why the change was...

Ever need more processing power than you currently have? Google has announced a solution for that problem with Google Compute Engine. The service was rumored to arrive this week at Google I/O, and we're glad to see it. Granted, you probably won't need something of this scale for your personal needs, but if you need "big iron" to run your apps (the demo was mapping the human genome with 600,000...